


Knock Knock

by orphan_account



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Essays are dumb, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 11:42:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16367234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It's one in the morning, and someone just knocked on Donghun's door.What he sees when he opens the door is not what he expects.





	Knock Knock

Donghun was busy pretending he wasn’t crying when a demanding knock came at his door.

He considered just not answering. It was one in the morning, after all; even as an RA, he could get away with saying he was asleep. Whoever it was could wait till morning.

 _In fact, whoever it is_ should _have waited till morning,_ thought Donghun bitterly as he walked over to the door. He wiped away his tears. Maybe it’d just be a noise complaint. That would be easy. Just yell at one person, and go back to writing that stupid essay. Or not. Either way, it’d be a quick job.

The last thing Donghun expected to see when he opened the door was Yuchan on his hands and knees, as if crawling away from his door.

Donghun couldn’t help but laugh a little. “What the fuck?”

Yuchan didn’t answer at first; he shifted into a sitting position and let out a painful hiss.

It occurred to Donghun that maybe Yuchan _wasn’t_ trying to crawl away from his door, but had fallen. “Are you okay?” he asked urgently, walking briskly over to Yuchan.

Yuchan looked up at Donghun guiltily. “Yeah, I just... I scraped my knees.”

Donghun’s eyes fell to his knees, which were badly scraped. One was bleeding.

“C’mon,” said Donghun, holding his hand out to Yuchan. “We should get that cleaned up.”

Yuchan didn’t take his hand, instead rising on his own. “N-no, I think I’ll be fine. I can clean it up in my own room.”

Donghun wanted to agree with him and send him on his way. Not even a minute ago, he’d been stressed to the point of tears. It made sense to turn him away.

But it was _Yuchan._

“If you think you can knock on my door at one in the morning and leave before telling me why, you’re wrong.” He took a step toward his room, beckoning for Yuchan to follow.

“But it’s... Well... Okay.” Yuchan followed him inside.

“Sit,” ordered Donghun, pointing at his bed. Yuchan obeyed, and Donghun went to the bathroom to fetch some wet paper towels and a band-aid. When he returned, he wordlessly began cleaning the scrape.

There was a moment of silence before Yuchan spoke. “Donghun, are you always up this late?”

“Not usually.” Donghun peeled the packaging off the band-aid and put it on Yuchan’s knee. “All done.”

Yuchan muttered a quick “thank you” before continuing. “So why are you up now?”

“I was writing an essay,” replied Donghun, sitting on the bed next to Yuchan.

“Did you finish?”

“I still haven’t, actually. And it’s due tomorrow... Or today, I guess.”

Yuchan gaped at Donghun. “Due tomorrow, and you haven’t finished? Did you not have enough time or something?”

“No, it’s not that. I just... I dunno.” He hung his head. “I just can’t.”

“You can’t?”

“Yeah, I dunno,” said Donghun, trying to sound casual. “I don’t know enough about the topic to write five fucking pages on it, and I can’t even bring myself to bullshit it, because I know it’s gonna suck if I do. And I just...” He paused and took in a deep breath. “I just want to _sleep._ But I need to finish this stupid paper.”

Yuchan’s brow furrowed with concern. “Oh.”

Donghun ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I’m sorry, you probably don’t want to hear this. I’m supposed to listen to _your_ problems and give _you_ advice.”

“No!” said Yuchan suddenly. He opened his mouth to continue, then shut it to get a better handle on his volume control. He paused a moment, before repeating himself, quieter. “No, it’s fine. If you need to talk about it, you should.”

Donghun shook his head. “I’ll be fine,” he lied. “You came here for something, right? What was it?”

“Oh, um...” Yuchan bit his lip and averted his gaze. “I think you’d be mad at me if I told you.”

Donghun laughed. “What? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m serious,” warned Yuchan. “You’re not gonna like it.”

“C’mon, you could shoot me in the head and I wouldn’t be mad at you.”

“Because you’d be _dead.”_

“Just tell me,” pleaded Donghun.

Yuchan sighed. “Okay... Well, Byeongkwan and I were just hanging out in our room, playing video games, chatting, you know. And I made a comment about how I could use ten bucks and he was like, ‘Hey, I’ll give you twenty if you knock on Donghun’s door really loudly and then run away.’ And I was like, ‘Right _now?_ It’s 1am!’”

“Wait, so what you’re telling me is Byeongkwan dared you to ding dong ditch me?”

“If you can even call it that when there’s no doorbell.”

Donghun rolled his eyes. “Knock knock ditch, then. So, what, you fell on the getaway and scraped your knees?”

Yuchan sighed. “Yeah... Pathetic, isn’t it?” He paused. “I’m sorry. I should have just left you alone. I thought you’d be asleep and you wouldn’t even hear me.”

Donghun was silent for a bit. He was looking at Yuchan: his hair, which he’d recently dyed a lighter brown; his eyes, which disappeared into lines when he laughed; his short little nose, which Donghun had been wanting to boop since the day they first met; and his mouth, which should have been smiling.

Donghun stared at his mouth a moment longer, suddenly overcome with a desire to gently press his lips against Yuchan’s. But he couldn’t. So he didn’t.

“You know,” said Donghun, tearing his gaze from Yuchan’s lips, “I’m kinda glad it was you at the door.”

Yuchan looked up at Donghun. “Why?”

Donghun thought about it. There was the obvious fact that he had a bit of a crush on him, but Yuchan was also the only person in the whole dorm he felt truly comfortable with. He had not made much of an effort to get to know any others, since he was so overwhelmed with his classes. But that was his _job._ If the other people in the dorm didn’t feel comfortable coming to him with issues, how could he do his job?

Honestly, Donghun didn’t even want this job. He didn’t even know why he took it. Weren’t the two years stressful enough? And now he was stuck with it for the rest of the year, and because he was so awful at it, a bunch of freshmen were going to have a terrible first year.

“D-Donghun, are you crying?” asked Yuchan, alarmed.

Shit.

“S-sorry,” said Donghun, frantically wiping away his tears. “I just—I just get a little emotional at night sometimes.”

“A _little?”_

Donghun rose from his bed. “You can go back to your room, Channie,” he said, his voice wavering. “I need to finish this essay.”

“Shouldn’t you rest, though?”

At the concern in Yuchan’s voice, Donghun turned to look at him. His eyes reflected the concern of his voice.

Donghun was compelled to listen to him.

He looked over to his laptop, which lay open on his desk. “What about my essay, though?”

“You’re stressed. Your professor should respect that. And if they don’t—” Yuchan took his hand again, holding it this time— “they can just fuck right off.”

Donghun looked at Yuchan again. He was smiling now, but that same look of concern was still in his eyes, searching Donghun’s. He didn’t need to search, though; Donghun was certain he could see right through him. And with that realization, Donghun’s mind and body gave up holding back.

 _He’s right,_ realized Donghun, his tears welling up in his eyes and overflowing onto his cheeks. _I’m just too tired to do this. To do anything._ He practically fell onto Yuchan, letting the stress of the past two years flow into Yuchan’s chest. _I’m ruining his shirt,_ thought Donghun, but a small voice within him replied, _Better his shirt than your wellbeing._ And Donghun couldn’t help but agree with that.

Eventually the two found themselves lying next to each other on Donghun’s bed, both too lazy to move. They stared up at the ceiling in silence, left once more to their own thoughts.

Donghun was embarrassed that he’d cried on Yuchan, but other than that, he was feeling better. He was trying to figure out how he’d gotten into this when he remembered he hadn’t answered Yuchan’s question—his question as to why he was happy to see him at the door instead of some other kid.

It was well past two in the morning now, and Donghun knew he’d get better chances, but something about the moment demanded him to tell Yuchan how he felt.

He took a moment to consider all the things that could go wrong—for example, the possibility that Yuchan was still after Junhee of all people. But ultimately none of it mattered. Two in the morning simply was not the time for reason.

“Channie,” whispered Donghun. “Do you know why I was happy you came?”

Donghun heard Yuchan turn his head to look at him. “Why?”

Donghun looked back at him, and for a moment his breath caught in his throat. “I kind of... like you, Channie.”

Yuchan smiled, blushing. “You know, I was thinking the same thing.”

They both leaned in, and Donghun wasn’t sure who closed the gap, but somehow they met in the middle.

That was the first thing Donghun remembered the next morning: the soft, gentle feeling of Yuchan’s lips against his.

He opened his eyes; Yuchan was no longer there. Had he ever been there at all?

Donghun sat up. The light had been turned off, and his laptop was closed—something he didn’t remember doing.

He got up and lifted the lid. The screen burst to life, shining bright white light in Donghun’s eyes. He flinched at how bright it was. He closed one eye to see what was on the screen as his eyes adjusted.

His essay was still open, unfinished. But there were some new words at the bottom.

_hey donghun,_  
_sorry i had to leave before u woke up. ur laptop was almost dead when i woke up, so i plugged it in. also, the light was still on. i guess we were too lazy to turn it off, heh. so i did that too._  
_i tried to read your essay and give you some feedback, but i only had time to read it... i have to get to class pretty quick. but it’s good so far! you can finish it, i know it. it’ll turn out just fine._  
_anyway... did you really mean it when you said you liked me? maybe we should go on a date sometime ;) text me!_  
_-channie_

Once Donghun finished reading, he smiled. Yuchan really was the best thing that ever happened to him, wasn’t he?

Donghun considered it for a moment.

Yeah. He was.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading~~~ i hope you all enjoyed this fic. i've been wanting to write a dongchan fic for a while ;w; i was kind of hoping it'd happen in the form of a multichapter fic, but this is fine too. it was surprisingly easy to write this, after how long it's taken me to write chapters of welcome home in the past few months... but i guess that's because welcome home's chapters are quite a bit longer than this puny little oneshot. heh.  
> speaking of welcome home... it's been, what, a month since i updated? and honestly i haven't worked on it at all. the past three or four days have been dedicated to this fic, and i've been developing a new multichapter fic for about a week... but before that i had _really bad_ writer's block. and honestly i think it was because of welcome home.  
>  i'll spare you the details, but i don't think i'm going to finish welcome home. it's just too emotionally draining to work on, and i don't even really like the result that much. sorry. i didn't want to be _that_ writer, but i kind of have to ditch it at this point. it's too much. (please don't comment about welcome home on this fic. that's not what this fic is for.)  
>  anyway... lemme promote my social media ;0  
> follow me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/charmikarma)  
> chat w me on [a.c.ecord](https://discord.gg/fuXuKrx)  
> or join [kpop readers + writers](https://discord.gg/rmU4mKy), a server for people like you and me: people who write and read kpop fanfiction! all are welcome  
> or if you're feeling really brave you can dm me on discord! my username and tag are charmikarma#4779


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